Thursday, March 3, 2011

Phase 2

Today was awesome. Not particularly amazing happened, but it was an awesome day.

At my weigh in I was down 0.6lbs. Now I know compared to weight loss on shows like the Biggest Loser and Heavy that this would not even be considered a loss, but for me in the real world it is most definitely something to be proud of.

Now I want to give you all a bit of a visual. What is 0.6lbs. Well it is the equivalent to half a pound of anything. I like to compare it to half a pound of butter.

I have a few visuals for you

Each of these white sticks is a 1/2 pound of butter.

Now while it would certainly be my preference that I could take off these sticks of butter as they appear in the bowl. It would certainly be easier to see the results if each stick came off of one particular area. I have a list of my preferred areas too, but that is not the way that it works, unfortunately.

So why was this particular stick of butter any different than the other 24 sticks that I have lost?

Well for one, this is the 10th week in a row that I have lost weight. Now for some this may not be a big deal, but for me, I have typically given up weight loss by this point, after yo-yoing back and for for a few weeks. Not this time, the scale as so far only seen one direction even if the progress has been slow.

The other reason that this was such a great day was that I spend some significant time in the car today (not unusual for me) and it gave me time to think about some of my goals. I was also realizing how my weigh loss/health goals fit with my saving money (for vacation) goals. Not only does eating at home and staying away from fast food or even healthy fast food help me with my journey, it also puts more money in my pocket. For some reason today, this clicked and the day just seemed so much easier. It was easy to drive by Tim Hortons. I had the afternoon off for an appointment so rather than going out for food I came home before my appointment and made a healthy lunch (1 egg with egg whites, tsp of goat cheese and 1/2 a red pepper). I also knew that I had to work late tonight so before I left I packed my bag of food for the car; peppers, light cheese, almonds, blueberries and a healthy granola bar. Having that food made it easy to drive by McDonald on my way home and I happily munched on red peppers instead.

The way that I look at it is if I can loose 12.5lbs in 10 weeks by putting a pretty good amount of effort in, what would happen if I started putting in the effort that I did week 1? I guess I won't know until I try. I am fearful of trying because I don't always see great success even when I try hard and that is disappointing because its easy to think that I can see similar results without all that work, but I won't know until I try and there is no reason why I can't.

So back to basics. I am rejuvenated about loosing weight and I am motivated this week. So next scale, look out.